Matthew McConaughey

Early life

Matthew David McConaughey was born on November 4, 1969, in Uvalde, Texas. His mother, Mary Kathleen (née McCabe, born 1932), is known as "Kay" or "KMac" and is a former kindergarten teacher and published author who taught McConaughey. She was originally from Trenton, New Jersey. His father, James Donald "Jim" McConaughey, was from Louisiana and ran an oil pipe supply business; he played for the Kentucky Wildcats and the Houston Cougars college football teams. In 1953, Jim was drafted in the 27th round by the NFL's Green Bay Packers. He was released before the season began and never played an official league game in the NFL.

McConaughey's mother and late father married each other three times, having divorced each other twice. He has two older brothers: Michael Patrick McConaughey (born 1954) and Patrick James McConaughey (born 1963, adopted). Michael, nicknamed "Rooster", is a self-made millionaire who stars in the CNBC docu-series West Texas Investors Club. McConaughey's ancestry includes English, German, Irish, Scottish, and Swedish. He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae. He had a Methodist upbringing.

McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas, in 1980, where he attended Longview High School. He lived in Australia for a year, in Warnervale, New South Wales, as a Rotary exchange student in 1988. He attended the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He began in the fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a bachelor's degree in Radio-Television-Film. His original plan had changed as he wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until one of his brothers told him that private school tuition would have been a burden on the family's finances. He also had planned to attend law school after graduation from college, but he realized he was not interested in becoming a lawyer.

1991–2000: Beginnings

McConaughey began working in television commercials, including one for the Austin, Texas daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, which is credited as his first speaking role. The line, "How else am I gonna keep up with my 'Horns?" – a reference to his beloved Texas Longhorns sports teams – gave the local community a look at the young actor, before he was cast in Richard Linklater's film Dazed and Confused. In 1992, he was cast as "Joe" in Trisha Yearwood's video for her hit song "Walkaway Joe."

After some smaller roles in Angels in the Outfield, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Boys on the Side, the television series Unsolved Mysteries, and as the male lead in the Trisha Yearwood music video for the song "Walkaway Joe", McConaughey's big break came as the lawyer Jake Brigance in the film A Time to Kill (1996), based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. In the late 1990s, McConaughey was cast in leading roles in more movies, including Contact, Amistad, The Newton Boys, EDtv and U-571.

2001–11: Romantic comedies

By the early 2000s, he was frequently cast in romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, both of which were successful at the box office. During this period, he appeared as a firefighter in the low-budget film Tiptoes, with Kate Beckinsale, in Two for the Money as a protégé to Al Pacino's gambling mogul, and in Frailty, with Bill Paxton, who also directed.

McConaughey starred in the 2005 feature film Sahara, along with Steve Zahn and Penélope Cruz. Prior to the release of the film, he promoted it by sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali. That same year, McConaughey was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2005. In 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch and as Marshall head football coach Jack Lengyal in We Are Marshall. McConaughey also provided voice work in an ad campaign for the Peace Corps in late 2006. He replaced Owen Wilson in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder after Wilson's suicide attempt. On January 21, 2008, McConaughey became the new spokesman for the national radio campaign, "Beef: It's What's for Dinner", replacing Sam Elliott.

2012–present: "The McConaissance"

McConaughey recognized that his "lifestyle, living on the beach, running with my shirt off, doing romantic comedies" had caused him to be typecast for certain roles, and he sought dramatic work with other themes. He said:

In 2012, McConaughey starred alongside Channing Tatum in Magic Mike, based on Tatum's early life, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh. He returned to his East Texas roots, working again with director Richard Linklater on Bernie, playing district attorney Danny Buck Davidson. In June 2012, McConaughey was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2013, he portrayed Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club. The role of a rodeo rider who discovers he has AIDS and struggles to get treatment required him to lose nearly 50 lb (22 kg). The film gathered wide critical acclaim and earned McConaughey many acting awards, including the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Drama, and the coveted Academy Award for Best Actor. His co-star Jared Leto won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making Dallas Buyers Club the first film since Mystic River (2003) to win both awards. He also featured in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street as Mark Hanna, an early boss of Jordan Belfort.

During this time, McConaughey recorded a public service announcement in Austin, Texas for the LBJ Presidential Library. In April 2014, Time magazine included McConaughey in its annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World." In August 2014, the Lincoln Motor Company signed a multi-year collaboration with McConaughey for an ad campaign. The commercials, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), featured McConaughey as a storyteller driving around in Lincoln's MKC crossover. Shortly after the commercials debuted in September 2014, they were parodied by Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O'Brien, Jim Carrey, South Park, and Saturday Night Live. Overall sales for Lincoln increased by 25 percent one month after the ads debuted. The series of commercials starring McConaughey continued until October 2015; during this period he also endorsed the MKZ sedan and MKX crossover.

In 2014, he shared star billing with Woody Harrelson in HBO's crime drama anthology series True Detective. For his role as Rust Cohle, he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. He was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, which he lost to Bryan Cranston and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. With his first Oscar win and the critical acclaim received for True Detective, "McConaughey seems to be tapping into something essential, remaining himself while stretching, getting older while staying the same age." Critic Rachel Syme dubbed his recognition and performances while taking on more complex, dramatic roles as "The McConaissance."

McConaughey also played Cooper, a widowed father and astronaut, alongside Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Mackenzie Foy, and Casey Affleck in Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Interstellar (2014). After finishing Gus Van Sant's 2015 film The Sea of Trees with Ken Watanabe, In 2016, McConaughey starred in two films, Free State of Jones and Gold, and voiced leading characters in two animated films, Kubo and the Two Strings and Sing.

In 2016, McConaughey was hired as creative director and celebrity spokesman for Wild Turkey's latest campaign, to bring in more women and more international customers.

McConaughey starred in the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower (2017), as Walter Padick. His upcoming roles include true life gangster drama White Boy Rick, Harmony Korine's The Beach Bum, and, opposite Diane Lane and Anne Hathaway, in the erotic thriller Serenity.

Personal life

McConaughey met Brazilian model and television performer Camila Alves in 2006. The couple became engaged on December 25, 2011, and were married in a private Catholic ceremony on June 9, 2012, in Austin, Texas, where they reside. Together, they have three children: sons Levi Alves McConaughey (born July 7, 2008) and Livingston Alves McConaughey (born December 28, 2012), and daughter Vida Alves McConaughey (born January 3, 2010).

McConaughey is a Christian and attends a non-denominational church.

McConaughey started the just keep livin foundation, which is "dedicated to helping teenage kids lead active lives and make healthy choices to become great men and women". On February 25, 2016, McConaughey received the Creative Conscience award from unite4:humanity for his work with his foundation.

McConaughey rescued various pets stranded after the flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he rescued a cat from two youths in Sherman Oaks, California, before they could set it on fire.

McConaughey is teaching classes at his alma mater, UT-Austin, the first session of which was about the filming of the 2016 film Free State of Jones. For the second session, he will team with The Hunger Games director Gary Ross and university lecturer Scott Rice. The college course, part of the Moody College of Communications, will be open to juniors and seniors. There are no prerequisites or fees to take the once a week course.

McConaughey is a supporter of the UT-Austin athletics program and frequently attends Texas Longhorns football games.